Lijbretto Complicato

2010 Banned English Words.

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 12:22:16 GMT

Michigan's Lake Superior State University has a Word Banishment Committee, which has issued its year 2010 list of words and phrases it deems time to be "unfriended."

"The list this year is a 'teachable moment' conducted free of 'tweets,'" said a Word Banishment spokesman who was "chillaxin'" for the holidays. "'In these economic times', purging our language of 'toxic assets' is a 'stimulus' effort that's 'too big to fail.'"

Former LSSU Public Relations Director Bill Rabe and friends created "word banishment" in 1975 at a New Year's Eve party and released the first list on New Year's Day. Since then, LSSU has received tens of thousands of nominations for the list, which includes words and phrases from marketing, media, education, technology and more.

On to the 2010 Banished Words List.
....

Indiana wants me....

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:49:53 GMT

Crying rape and likely also gay panic might get him out of a murder.... might.

Not to mention the rapist or was that the victim is black.

This is afterall Indiana.

JUSTICE for DON BELTON

...

Dollhouse tidbits....

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:47:08 GMT

Senator Daniel Perrin (Alexis Denisof) has a webpage:
http://www.senatordanielperrin.org/about-sen-perrin/

A Twitter Account:
http://twitter.com/SENDanielPerrin

A Facebook page:
http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Daniel-Perrin/100000293788095

And a public Email account:
daniel@senatordanielperrin.org

And he is damn sure going after the Rossum Corporation:

He told awaiting media: “There is nothing less than a conspiracy, spear-headed by the Rossum Corporation, to withhold medical advancements, to use radical, illegal technology for undeclared profit, to treat people like guinea pigs and the public at large like cattle.“

Senator Perrin has named it his personal mission to publicly investigate Rossum Corporation to ensure they are dealing ethically and within the law.

Hopefully, he will be able to get it done in just 9 episodes. Fox is not showing Dollhouse until 4 December and then they will show two episodes. Each of the succeeding weeks will also see two episodes on each Friday. It is has not been determined when the last three episodes will be aired, however, Fox has promised to air them. But it appears that will then be the end of Dollhouse.
...

A whole yeasrs worth of tasty rugby hunks....

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:29:21 GMT

Here, along with other tasty tidbits.

Well..... this explains a lot!

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:59:16 GMT

Vampires as Gay Men: What's Really Going on With All These Vampires?

From Twilight to True Blood and now The Vampire Diaries, is it vampires that so many American women love... or just gay men?

By Stephen Marche

Forget everything you've read about vampires so far. The current bloodsucking trend, achieving maximum ferocity in November with the release of the sequel to Twilight, isn't about outsiders or immigrants or religion or even AIDS, as critics and bloggers have argued ad nauseam these past few months. There's a much better, simpler, more obvious explanation: Vampires have overwhelmed pop culture because young straight women want to have sex with gay men. Not all young straight women, of course, but many, if not most, of them. Neil Gaiman, sci-fi novelist and geek grandmaster, found out just how many during the shitstorm of pique that covered him from head to toe this past summer after he suggested in an interview that the vampire craze had run its course and should disappear for another twenty to twenty-five years. (Twilight fans took to Twitter in protest.) A foolish hope. The craving for vampire fiction is not a matter of taste but of urges; one does not read or watch it so much as inject it through the eyes, and like any epidemic, it's symptomatic of something much larger: a quiet but profound sexual revolution and a new acceptance of freakiness in mainstream American life.
....
In the best-selling Undead series of MaryJanice Davidson, the Queen of the Vampires is a suburbanite named Betsy Taylor. Edward, the romantic hero of the Twilight series, is a sweet, screwed-up high school kid, and at the beginning of his relationship with Bella, she is attracted to him because he is strange, beautiful, and seemingly repulsed by her. This exact scenario happened several times in my high school between straight girls and gay guys who either hadn't figured out they were gay or were still in the closet. Twilight's fantasy is that the gorgeous gay guy can be your boyfriend, and for the slightly awkward teenage girls who consume the books and movies, that's the clincher. Vampire fiction for young women is the equivalent of lesbian porn for men: Both create an atmosphere of sexual abandon that is nonthreatening. That's what everybody wants, isn't it? Sex that's dangerous and safe at the same time, risky but comfortable, gooey and violent but also traditional and loving. In the bedroom, we want to have one foot in the twenty-first century and another in the nineteenth.

True Blood also casts its shadow on the romance between a young woman and a vampire, but unlike Twilight, which is all subtext and love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name, HBO's cult series connects vampirism to homosexuality explicitly. In the opening credits — best opening credits ever? — a passing road sign reads GOD HATES FANGS. The vampires call the humans "breathers" instead of "breeders," and the series opens with a talk-show interview about vampires "mainstreaming," or "coming out of the coffin." True Blood contrasts its vampires' desires for normalcy with humans who are extreme drug users, shape-shifters, and orgiastic maenads, and it's a perfect encapsulation of the American bedroom at this moment: Everyone is a freak, even the people who claim to rail against freakiness.
....
Neil Gaiman should take some comfort, though: Vampires will eventually go away. They always do. But only when they've sucked our fear and our longing dry.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/thousand-words-on-culture/vampires-gay-men-1109

I guess it might have started with Joss Whedon's Buffy....

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:12:00 GMT

Or maybe it was Ursula K. Le Guin or Captain Janeway? At any rate a somewhat anti-feminist website called The Spearhead [wasn't that a gay bar in Arizona - or a rebel rock band?] which is currently arguing that women and gays are screwing up science fiction, and that science fiction belongs to men, that is real men, and women should butt out (except as objects of affection undoubtably preferably at the end of the story). The post begins "Science fiction is a very male form of fiction," and it continues, in part, with the following:

The current generation of boys will not have this inspiration from science fiction, at least from science fiction on television and in movies. That’s because there is an undeclared war on real science fiction on TV and in movies. The former Sci-Fi channel, now “Syfy”, is a good example of what has been happening to science fiction on television. In 1998 Bonnie Hammer took over the Sci-Fi channel and declared that “more female viewers were needed”. Over the next several years, the Sci-Fi channel became increasingly feminized losing many of its traditional male viewers in an attempt to go after women viewers. This included making the logos “warmer and more human” because the logos before were “too male and too dark”. The biggest change was in the feminization of the programming shown on the Sci-Fi channel. The ~~re-imagined~~ re-delusioned Battlestar Galactica is a good example. ...

The feminization of the Sci-Fi channel was not limited to Battlestar Galactica. Over time there has been more fantasy and less science fiction because women are more interested in the supernatural and the paranormal than men are. Scripts were rewritten to have “more relationships” (more relationship drama) and less “space battles”. The Sci-Fi channel’s remake of Flash Gordon ended up being a flop because it lost lots of viewers after the first episode where not much actual science fiction happened. The Sci-Fi channel even changed its name to “Syfy”. While the issue there was trademarks, this name change effectively represents the death of the Sci-Fi channel. This season three gay characters will be added to various shows on “Syfy”, one of which will be part of a “communal marriage” with “heterosexual and homosexual couplings”. This will mean less programming where men actually do things and more relationship drama, driving away even more men from the channel.

Also who is at fault for ruining sci-fi in Britain?

Things are worse in Britain. A few years ago Doctor Who was brought back. The man who brought back Doctor Who was Russell T. Davies, a gay man who proceeded to add a recurring character called Captain Jack who comes from the 51st century that was ~~bisexual~~ omnisexual. Yes, omnisexual as in not only is this character bisexual, but he has no problem with having sex with non-humans too. If you read interviews with Davies and the writers they use the term omnisexual to describe Captain Jack. Davies has also admitted in interviews that he believes everyone will be “omnisexual” by the 51st century. Davies had more plans like this for Doctor Who, but there were so outrageously bad and obnoxious that the leftist BBC actually put a stop to him doing that (citing that Doctor Who was traditionally a “family show”).

Well! Wouldn't Captain Kirk have a problem with that? Wait... what was it with those green Orion women and however would we have gotten Spock?!

Personally, I think the whole problem when the Sci-Fi Channel changed it's name to SyFy.
...

15 Billboards which may or may not belong next to each other....

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:28:25 GMT

15 Billboards which may or may not belong next to each other....

OR 14 & 1/2, two are rather similar.....

Happy Birthday, frenchani!

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:27:55 GMT

It must be July 23rd for frenchani in Paris....

Joyeux anniversaire, mon Domina.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:49:12 GMT

It's no longer worth the pain.

Gratuitous rugby-player skin fights male cancers

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:09:20 GMT

Swede Jonas Erik Altberg finds his spiritual center. For more click here or on the pic.

Back from the dead......

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:21:53 GMT

Two weeks in the hospital, 105*F+ temperatures, cyst of MRSA on my right leg.... and today I am 5 days out of the hospital and I finally feel 'normal.'

Blogging on an American Classic...

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:23:04 GMT

No..... not morel mushrooms. It's Peanuts!! No, not the kind you eat; it's the kind you read and take in with your eye and find humor in the little things kids do. The kind that warms your heart. Peanuts was (well, it still is, they run old ones as 'Classic Peanuts') a comic strip by Charles M. Schulz that first appeared in 1950 and ran until 13 February 2000, ending the day after the death of Schultz. But it had a three-year run before that as the strip Li'l Folks that ran in Schulz's hometown paper. Schulz's main character, Charlie Brown, was an everyman in a the form of a 6 year old boy with a dog (the yet unnamed Snoopy when the strip first appeared). Now the blog "Roasted Peanuts" is reviewing the strip from the first strips. It's fun to watch the progression of the characters and see the style of Schulz mature in the minor maturation of his ever-young Peanuts gang, along with a progression of jokes tending from the grown-up to dumb-kid jokes to sight gags.

According to the SLOG Amazon's Delisting was a French 'glitch'

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:25:50 GMT

The SLOG is reporting now that the delisting was done by a French worker in Amazon.fr who misunderstood "adult" meaning "sexuality" and/or "sexuality" in terms of a book's content. The slog reports:

I asked Mike for more details, and according to his inside sources, the story is that a programmer at Amazon France was editing the site to filter porn out of some search results, and he "mixed up 'adult,' which is the term they use for porn, with stuff like 'erotic' and 'sexuality.' The system he was working on is universal, so the change he made propagated across Amazon's sites worldwide.
Amazon's systems are notoriously idiosyncratic so it's not hard to imagine a change like this getting into their worldwide system, though it's certainly interesting that it would be so difficult to correct the problem.
When Mark Probst received his reply from customer service, the rep misunderstood the problem and sent him a boilerplate response on how they deal with "adult" content.
The technical reasons for this glitch (no quotes!) are still hazy at best, and it seems increasingly unlikely that Amazon will issue any sort of real explanation, unfortunately.

And yet Canada wasn't affected???

.. .. ..

Amazon.com delisting

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:45:19 GMT

It appears that Amazon.com in the USA (Canadian Amazon.ca doesn't seem to be doing it) is delisting and thus degrading books of their sales rankings due to their "adult" content (see the Stranger's SLOG or Towleroad). LJ Meta Writers has posted a list of the books that have been stripped which includes almost all novels in a user's Top 100 Gay Novels List including James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain, and Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance. With this move the Amazon.com has made a wasteland of the Top Books in their Gay and Lesbian category and elevated this book to the top spot.

Author Mark Probst found that his gay romance novel, The Filly, had its "sales rank" data removed just days ago, meaning it would no longer show up on things like Amazon's best-seller lists. He then reported that this weekend on his LJ [markprobst] saying:

"Many of us decided to write to Amazon questioning why our rankings had disappeared. Most received evasive replies from customer service reps not versed in what was happening. As I am a publisher and have an Amazon Advantage account through which I supply Amazon with my books, I had a special way to contact them. 24 hours later I had a response:

"In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude 'adult' material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

"Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

"Best regards, Ashlyn D Member Services Amazon.com Advantage"

It has also beenn found that some titles by Dan Savage have also met with the Amazon axe. Said a Hawaii-vacationing Savage via the Slog's Anthony Hecht: "It's a freaking high-tech book burning. Mein Kampf and American Psycho not considered "adult" by Amazon, Heather Has Two Mommies—a children's book—is? And no anti-gay titles affected, so first search on 'homosexual' brings up AFA book on preventing your kid from being gay when he grows up! --- And my computer is dead!"

The L.A. Times reports that the delisting is somewhat sporadic. A more complete understanding might be gained come Monday or Tuesday. In the meantime though, a petition protesting the de-rankings has sprung up on Facebook.

.. .. ..

What Type of Art Are You?

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 03:01:40 GMT

You Are a Mosaic

You are worldly and cultured. You draw inspiration from many sources. You appreciate vivid colors and busy scenes, but you like a bit of order too.

You believe that art should have many layers. It should be beautiful up close and from afar. The best art gets more interesting the longer you look at it.

What Type of Art Are You?

Hot Time in SoCal to Come??

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:25:36 GMT

Bombay Beach/San Andreas earthquake swarm....

".....sent me a link to the Arizona Geology blog today that suggest that the earthquakes might be magma related - I stress might. A 3D rendering of the earthquakes from the swarm - all between 0.1 and 4.8 on the Richter Scale - are reminiscent of what you might expect from magma movement and cooling.
** WARNING : SPECULATION AHEAD **
Now, I am no expert in the geology of the area and yes, a strike-slip system is not your typical home for volcanism, but it is not unprecedented. Volcanism can occur in "pull apart" areas along a strike-slip fault where the fault, similar to the situation with the San Andreas near the Salton Sea. Also, evidence of magmatism have been seen before in that area of the fault system. The Salton Sea area is no stranger to volcanism as well during the Quaternary along with the Salton Sea geothermal field. So, it wouldn't be out of the question that these swarms might be magma moving/intruding under the Salton Sea. Now, if (and I stress if) an eruption were to take place, I'm not entirely sure what form it might take: rhyolite domes like the Salton Buttes, cinder cones like the San Francisco Volcanic Field in Arizona, beats me. However, it is an interesting prospect to think that volcanism might occur in southern California."

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:48:09 GMT

I need a lover who won't drive me crazy - some guy to thrill me and then go away....

Porn for Book Lovers....

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:45:52 GMT

Porn for Book Lovers....

And even more porn: Most Interesting Bookstores of the World

And even much more porn: Most Interesting Libraries of the World

American anti-gay conference in Uganda.

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 07:28:23 GMT

Much has been going on in Uganda over the weekend concerning the actions of Scott Lively, a denier of the gay holocaust and historical revisionist who claims the Nazi party was rife with homosexuals (including Hitler) and who blamed the 1994 Rwandan genocide on gays; Bob Brundidge, who is associated with the International Healing Federation, an 'ex-gay' organization which seeks to de-gay people through the touchy-feely lunacy of 'therapist' Richard Cohen, and Brundidge is also associated with an Arizona ministry which goes around to mortuaries and prays for the raising of the dead; and finally there is Don Schmierer.

Schmierer works for Howard Ahmanson Jr's Fieldstead and Company; Ahmanson is the main ultra-conservative backer of theocratic dominionist projects (he gave over $1 million to pass Prop 8). Schmierer is also a board member of Exodus International which is the Evangelical umbrella organization for ministries worldwide which deal with de-gaying people. At the conference in Uganda, it was also brought up that gays and lesbians should be (on top of the prison penalties for being gay) forced to undergo ex-gay therapies. All of this occuring seemingly under the auspices of Exodus, for which a letter was prepared, which is prefaced below. You can see it if you like at any of the links below.

Open Letter to the Exodus International Board of Directors

Posted on March 11th, 2009 by David Roberts

The following represents a cooperative effort between Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin, Mike Airhart and Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out, and me, David Roberts of Ex-Gay Watch. This is not an exercise in hyperbole, but a serious, heartfelt stand. I have added my name to this effort because I feel a line has been crossed with the conference in Uganda, and it requires a stronger level of action in response. Anything less seems like too little. This does not, however, necessarily represent the position or feelings of the other writers at XGW. — David Roberts

Paper weighs a lot.... thankfully my ancestors were from other parts of Deutschland

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:26:20 GMT

Cologne Archive Building Collapses in Germany

The building housing Cologne's municipal archive collapsed on Tuesday, bringing parts of some surrounding structures down with it. At least two people are missing.

First they heard loud creaking noises. Then, workers in the Cologne city archive building were ordered to get out as quickly as they could. Shortly afterwards, the entire structure collapsed, bringing down parts of neighboring buildings along with it.

Cologne's historical archive is the largest such municipal collection north of the Alps. It contains some 65,000 documents pertaining to the city's history, including one dating all the way back to the year 922. The archive also contains some half a million photographs. The building which collapsed on Tuesday was built in 1971 to house the archive.

Source & Full Story
. . .

Naked People....

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:58:26 GMT

"Naked People" is a German site (so unfortunately I can't read the small bit of info available) that seems to be an art project by designer Sebastian Kempa. Quite obviously, the site portrays naked people but it goes far beyond that. Instead of being salacious Kempa features regular, ordinary folk. You see them in their clothes to begin, but when you click the photo their clothes dissolve and you see them in the their naked glory. Young, old, fat, skinny, male, female, in shape and out, the website shows all without commentary. Of particular interest might be a certain woman teacher (who I am not saying I know!) and a businessman.

Obviously, this is NSFW - Not Safe For Work! The site is definitely one to remind us not to judge a book by its cover.

At the Oscars....

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:54:53 GMT

Milk's screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black, picked up the Best Original Screenplay, and gave a passionate speech about equality, via GLAADBlog (video at Good As You):

Oh my God. This was, um. This was not an easy film to make. First off, I have to thank Cleve Jones and Anne Kronenberg and all the real-life people who shared their stories with me. And, um, Gus Van Sant, Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, James Franco, and our entire cast, my producers, Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, everyone at Groundswell and Focus, for taking on the challenge of telling this life-saving story. When I was 13 years old, my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas to California and I heard the story of Harvey Milk. And it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life, it gave me the hope to one day live my life openly as who I am and that maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married.
(He chokes up, audience begins to applaud.)
I want to thank my mom who has always loved me for who I am, even when there was pressure not to. But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he'd want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches or by the government or by their families that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours. (Wild applause from the audience.) Thank you, thank you, and thank you God for giving us Harvey Milk.

Manifesto of Adkisson, the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church killer.

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:13:46 GMT

Tenn. church shooter pleads guilty, gets life

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - An out-of-work truck driver smiled Monday as he pleaded guilty to killing two people and wounding six others at a Tennessee church last summer because he considered the liberal church "a den of un-American vipers."

"Yes, ma'am, I am guilty as charged," Jim D. Adkisson, 58, told Criminal Court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz before she sentenced him to life in prison without parole on two counts of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder.

READ MORE HERE.....

But that isn't what is getting the play in the blogs (especially some of the less progressive ones). Adkisson was a voracious reader of right-wing materials. Most notably "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly. And yesterday in his own words Adkisson told us himself how much the idea of eliminating liberals motivated him in his shooting spree. Shortly after he was sentenced yesterday, he released a four-page handwritten "manifesto" which had been intended to be his suicide note to the Knoxville News (326Kb PDF file). In it, he unleashes the full measure of his hatred for anything faintly liberal (or perhaps even centrist). Furthermore Adkisson encourages other would-be right-wing warriors to take up arms and follow him into battle. I'll let some of his word's speak. It is important to know what extremism in the face of religion can produce. Some choice excerpts (my emphasis):

"Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....

"This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid rid America of this cancerous pestilence."

"I thought I'd do something good for this Country Kill Democrats til the cops kill me....Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is to kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather. I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done. If life aint worth living anymore don't just kill yourself. do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals.

It is perhaps likekly that Adkisson may emerge from this as a new hero of the extreme right wing. It also seems likely that, probably sooner rather than later, other disaffected victims of our failing economy will pick up his gauntlet along with their guns, and attempt to follow him into battle.

The Knoxville Sentinal has gotten some criticism for publishing Adkisson's manifesto.
Read their answer to such criticism here: News Sentinel criticized for posting Adkisson 'manifesto'

Make your own Obamicon!

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:10:16 GMT

Make your own "Obamicon" — your image in a style inspired by Shepard Fairey's iconic poster of Barack Hussein Obama. Regardless of your candidate of choice in the 2008 election, here's your chance to sound-off. Take your picture with a webcam or upload a photo of yourself, a friend, your cat, dog, favorite wine...., then choose your own message, and submit to the gallery.

I was surprised that one of mine someone actually rated, it got 5 stars! A simple scene of a family seated on their living room couch with the words "Family Values" underneath.

One of our favorite TV producer/director/writers and a political statement:

And these two which relate that great French phrase:

You can see my others at my Obamicon Profile page. Some might be people you recognize.

...

New looks at the Inauguration..... and Earth itself.

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:49:28 GMT

There are new ways in media to look at photographs of the Inauguration. Best of these is CNN's PhotoSynth of the Inaugural Moment which is a a Microsoft technology that creates 3D spaces from anyone's 2D photos. Hundreds of thousands of synths are viewable on photosynth.com, including the best inauguration synths. What's cool about it is that it uses Microsoft Silverlight for veiwing. Wait I downloaded Silverlight back in September, finally I get to use it!! As it takes 60 photographs or even more of one event or scene to get the optimal PhotoSynth experience from those various points of view. CNN happily relies on crowdsourcing its photos from the public. (I gotta find one of the Grand Canyon). The only problem for me is that nasty bugaboo, bandwidth down on the farm.... :-/

While man made up the photosynth, machines have also been watching. GeoEye-1, the satellite that will supply Google with high-resolution imagery of the Earth, took a high-resolution photograph of the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Click below on the small pic of the Mall during the Obama Inauguration for the larger view. GeoEye also has an original frame on their website for downloading. And check out the GeoEye Gallery; this imagery will be coming to Google Earth in the near future. Utterly amazing, people seem almost ant-like.